


haven't felt like this my dear since can't remember when

by dragonyfox



Series: it must have been that something lovers call 'fate' [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Multi, when i said everyone lives i goddamn meant it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9440444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonyfox/pseuds/dragonyfox
Summary: He finds another signature in the force. One he’s hated and one he regrets letting escape death when he could have killed him. He wishes he’d listened to Chancellor Palpatine and sliced his head off when he had a chance.Dooku is here to kill the younglings.He runs..AKA: in which Anakin narrowly avoids becoming Darth Vader





	

He turns away from Ahsoka, unable to look at the back of her head after she’s turned away from him. “I understand, more than you realize, wanting to walk away from the order.”

She responds, quietly, “So why don’t you?”

He turns back around to face her, alarmed. “What?”

She looks him in the eyes. “Why haven’t you left the order? What keeps you tied to it? Obi-Wan? This war?”

He doesn’t know how to respond.

“I know about you and Padmé and Obi-Wan,” she says, “I know you hate how the Jedi code barely allows your relationship with your soulmates. I know you hate the restrictions, and I know you’ve gone against them.”

He stares at her. She’s always very blunt, but rarely is it directed at him.

She continues: “I know you’re married to Padmé, and I know you’re involved with Obi-wan too. I know, okay? I’m your soulmate and your- and I was your padawan. I know these things. So why _haven’t_ you left yet?”

He’s frozen. She clenches her jaw a little, and he can see the anger and sympathy in her eyes, can feel it radiating from her. She turns on her heel and walks away, and he’s helpless to stop her. He watches one of his soulmates walk away from him, and he is in agony.

.

Padmé is pregnant. Padmé is pregnant. Anakin doesn’t know what to do because _Padmé is pregnant_ and he’s the father.

If he chooses to publicly acknowledge this child, he’ll be kicked out of the order. If he chooses to not publicly acknowledge this child, Padmé will have to pretend to be a single mother. She might lose her senator position. She might be targeted even more than she already has been. The price on her head might go up.

He wants to be a father.

“Tell me what you want,” he says to her one night as they were lying in bed. She’s beautiful, lying next to him. He’s barely allowed to be here. If her words hadn’t been on his arm, and his words on hers, this wouldn’t have been allowed. He can barely imagine a world where he wasn’t allowed at her side.

“What?” she replies blearily.

His voice grows softer. “What’s your perfect scenario of what happens to you, me, and the baby?” 

“I want to have the baby, end this war, and retire with you to Naboo where you’d stay with the baby while I did my senator job,” she answers. “Of course, that’s not possible, what with the Jedi Order and everything, but you asked for my perfect scenario.”

He nods and tells her to go back to sleep. She does. He stays awake, thinking.

Ahsoka’s voice rings in the back of his head: _“Why haven’t you left yet?”_

.

He looks at Mace Windu, and avoids Obi-Wan’s grief-stricken expression as he hands over his lightsaber and tells the council that he couldn’t stay. He doesn't explain why, and as soon as Master Yoda and Master Windu accept his lightsaber and extract a promise to keep any and all Jedi secrets he had learned a secret, he leaves the temple.

“Wait, Anakin!”

He grimaces. He was hoping to be away before Obi-Wan recovered, but he put on as pleasant of an expression as he could. “Yes, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan skid to a halt, panting. “Why are you doing this, Anakin?”

“I have to.” He hated to see him so sad. It made the words on his arm ache. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan. If it makes you feel better, I’m not completely leaving like-” He can’t say her name. “I’m still going to be on Coruscant, with Padmé. I just- Something happened, and I can’t be away from her that long.

Obi-Wan stands up fully, and looks him in the eye. Anakin doesn’t know what he sees there, but whatever it is, it makes him reach for his belt and pull his lightsaber from it. Not Anakin’s, though he sees that the Council gave it to Obi-Wan. No, Anakin's stays on Obi-Wan’s belt like it belongs there.

He’s holding out his own lightsaber to Anakin.

"I don't understand," Anakin says.

"I know I can't change your mind about leaving," Obi-Wan replies, pained. "But I can ensure that you leave with a weapon that you're comfortable with to protect yourself and Padmé. And your baby.”

Anakin doesn’t even ask how he knows about Padmé’s pregnancy. He takes the lightsaber silently, and looks Obi-Wan in the eye as best as he can. He doesn’t have words, but he knows Obi-Wan is reading his emotions. He’ll understand.

.

Anakin wakes from a nightmare. He barely hears Padmé asking what's wrong. He tells her to ready a ship to leave. He has to go check something. She should be safe, but take a blaster, he tells her. She goes, C-3PO and R2D2 at her heels.

He runs.

He runs through the temple, horrified and aching at the loss in the Force. Obi-Wan's lightsaber is in his hand, a familiar blue blade of plasma at the ready. He searches the Force around the temple, feeling for survivors. If there are any, he'll have to move fast to get to them before whoever slaughtered the others do.

He finds them. Their signatures are soft, weak. They are defenseless, small and scared. Some hide their signature better, but mostly it seems that they don't know how to do that.

 _Younglings,_ he realizes in a flash.

He finds another signature in the force. One he’s hated and one he regrets letting escape death when he could have killed him. He wishes he’d listened to Chancellor Palpatine and sliced his head off when he had a chance.

Dooku is here to kill the younglings.

He runs.

He finds them. They're safe. He picks up the smallest of them, a little human girl with dark hair. There's only seven, and five are humans. The twi'lek girl and the rodian boy stare at him with distrust.

"Listen," he tells them, "I don't really know what's going on, but you're in danger. I know I'm not a jedi anymore, but I can get you to safety, alright?"

They decide to trust him. He leads them through the temple, taking a winding route and checking corners. He doesn't put down the small girl. He thinks he might break down if he does.

He takes a risk and contacts Padmé. He tells her to meet him nearby.

Her ship is waiting when he and the younglings arrive, and he herds them onto the ship. He yells for her to get them off of this planet and buckles the kids in while she begins liftoff.

"Where are we going?" she asks.

He doesn't know. Instead, he says, "Anywhere that isn't here! Somewhere safe!"

"Okay, I'm setting the autopilot for-"

R2 whistles and beeps. Anakin isn't listening very closely, but he catches the gist: R2 has an idea. He trusts R2 with his life.

Padmé says, "Okay, R2's setting us a course for somewhere."

He doesn't care where they go. He just needs these kids and Padmé and the baby to be safe. Hell, if it meant them staying safe, he'd willingly go back to Tatooine.

.

He stays with the kids, trying to comfort and distract them. He doesn't have answers to what happened, but he can help them refine their control over the Force with a trick Obi-Wan taught him, or explain how the mind trick actually works. It's a little advanced, but he knows kids are smart as hell, and if throwing difficult topics at them distracted them from the fact that the rest of the jedi had been slaughtered, so be it.

He desperately hoped Obi-Wan was okay.

"Anakin?" Padmé says, leaning on the entryway between the passenger hold and the cockpit. "Can I speak to you, please?"

"Of course," he says, then turns to the kids. "Behave. Don't use the Force to smack each other, please."

"Yes, Master Skywalker," the younglings reply in unison.

He points at the small girl he'd carried through the temple. "That means you, hotshot."

The girl grins mischievously. "Yes, Master Skywalker."

He shakes his head and joins Padmé in the cockpit. Before she can speak, he pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head over and over.

"How are you feeling?" she asks when he lets her pull away a little.

"I'm tired. Didn't get my beauty sleep," he jokes.

She frowns at him. "Anakin."

He sighs. "I'm tired, confused, and scared. The Force feels empty. I don't know where Obi-Wan is, I don't know where Ahsoka is, and I'm scared for them."

"Well," Padmé says, "that's part of why I called you in here. R2 says he knows where Ahsoka is, and he's piloting the ship to her location."

"Really?" relief floods him. That would be one more soulmate he'd know was safe.

Padmé smiles and holds out a holo-communicator. "Yes, really. In fact, he says we're going to be there very soon, and I thought you'd like to contact her before we land. He's got a comm frequency ready for you."

He takes the communicator and nods silently, unable to speak.

Ahsoka's face appears in his palm. Her expression shifts from suspicious to surprised. "Master?"

"Ahsoka," he says, his voice thick. He clears his throat. "I'm very glad to see you. Something's happened…"

.

“We can’t go to Naboo,” Padmé says quietly. “They’ll know to look for you there. I’m in your Jedi file as your soulmate.”

“I know,” Anakin replies.

“We have to go somewhere they won’t expect you to go to.”

“I agree.”

“You’re not going to like my suggestion...”

Anakin sets the ship to autopilot, and turns to his wife slowly. “Padmé…”

She meets his gaze. “We should go to Tatooine.”

He groans. He hadn’t known what she was going to say, but somehow that was worse. “Can’t we go to some jungle planet? I know one that houses some rebels that would protect us…”

“Anakin, think of the children. Our child."

Ahsoka enters the cockpit then. "I managed to get a message through to Obi-Wan. He says he'll meet us on Tatooine, at Mos Eisley."

Anakin scowls at Padmé. "You two planned this."

Padmé shrugs. "It's our safest bet. We can make different plans later, once we're all together and safe. But Tatooine is our best bet, and you know it.

"I know."

"Besides," Padmé says, offhandedly, "I'm pretty sure the babies are coming soon, and I'd prefer to be in a medbay instead of on a tiny ship with no medical supplies."

Anakin gawks at her for a moment, then orders Ahsoka to turn the hyperspace drive up a notch before he begins fussing over Padmé.

.

Obi-Wan arrives just hours after the babies are born. Padmé is safe in the medbay, Ahskoa is standing guard, and the seven kids are curled together on the lone couch in the room. Anakin is sitting in a hard metal chair, holding his baby daughter.

"I'm sorry I was late," Obi-Wan says softly, taking in the scene. "I came as quickly as I could. Do you want the news now, or…?"

"Not yet," Anakin replies quietly. "Sit with us. Bad news can wait until morning."

Obi-Wan sits on the floor and leans his head against Padmé's bed. "I'm very glad you're safe."

"Me too," Anakin agrees. "Do you want to hold one of them?"

He doesn't wait for Obi-Wan's response, and shifts Leia a little, and takes the sleeping Luke from Padmé's sleeping arms. He hands him down to Obi-Wan, who takes him gently.

"He's beautiful," Obi-Wan says.

"Padmé and I would be honored if you'd agree to co-parent with us," Anakin said. "Well. She demanded that you help while she was in labor. She was very angry. You know how she is when she's angry."

"I'd be happy to help," Obi-Wan said. "Considering the situation."

Ahsoka snorts. "Yeah, the situation being that there's now nine kids to take care of between the three of you."

"Don't think you'll get out of helping, Snips," Anakin warns. "You're the big sister, you've got to set an example."

Obi-Wan groans. "Great, there's going to be nine of you…"

Ahsoka and Anakin shared a quiet laugh.

Anakin, for all that he's still aching at the emptiness in the Force, feels happier and safer than he has in a long, long time. 

 


End file.
